Regulation and autonomy in higher education: issues for teacher training in England and Wales

The traditional Western model of the university, characterised by collegiality and the autonomy, has been challenged by agencies of the U.K. central state in the quest to regulate knowledge, production and distribution, particularly in programmes of vocational preparation previously the province of the non-university sector. As part of the latter, teacher training has progressively been subjected to increased state regulation through policies which question higher education expertise and, as a corollary, increase the participation of schools. Social and cultural reproduction is reinforced as schools function to transmit state-sanctioned teacher training knowledge, perceived in utilitarian and atheoretical terms. The result is a conflict between a notional increase in accountability and democratisation, and the weakening of critical discourse and professional autonomy in the teacher training sector of higher education.